Thunder and Lightening

Kerr-pow!


As we move into Autumn over here, one thing I've noticed is we're getting more thunderstorms. Since I got here in October I've seen and heard more thunder and lightening than I have done for years back in the UK. Not sure why this is, but I guess the combination of warmer weather and being nearer to the sea has something to do with it.

There were two large storms that passed through this week, and they were certainly spectacular. The first one happened on Wednesday morning when I was at work - but I got home to find one excited flatmate and one beeping dishwasher. Apparently our flat had been struck by lightening, and the power surge had fried the dishwasher, which sat there making various distressed electronic noises. But miraculously it recovered and is now working fine. My flatmate had been only yards from it when it went bang, sitting in the kitchen eating a bowl of Wheaties. A lucky escape.

The second storm came through last night, and I got a close view on the way home from work. It wasn't raining, but the storm was building up and the sky was that strange orangey/brown colour (or that could just be my colourblindness), and it got very humid. I just came out of a newsagent when a massive lightening bolt came down just where I was looking at the sky. It was amazing, a blinding blue jagged streak forking into the ground - it must only have been half a mile away or so - and as exciting as it was, it made me walk home all the quicker.

Edge of the seat stuff

Here's a word of advice - when surreptitiously following a football match on the internet whilst at work, don't say in a loud voice 'Come on!' when your team scores the winner with ten minutes to go. Fortunately thanks to the time difference the goal went in at 8am Sydney time, and my office was almost deserted. I was watching the live updates of the Blackburn FA Cup match against bitter local rivals Burnley, which took the form of sentences of text describing any major occurence in the game. Every two minutes the screen would refresh with thrilling edge-of-the-seat stuff like "58mins - Lucas Neill (Blackburn) Attacking throw-in" or "64mins - Henri Camara (Burnley) fouled by Gary Flitcroft (Blackburn). Free kick Burnley. Defended." You can understand my excitement when the page flicked over to reveal "85mins - GOAL - Blackburn - Morten Gamst Pedersen, right foot, drilled 20yds - Blackburn 2 Burnley 1" Come on indeed.

It's hard to explain to non-football fans the sheer tension of watching matches in word format. Until the page updates/refreshes, you can only imagine what's going on. Take Ceefax, for instance. In the time it takes two pages to pass over, you have to wait almost a full minute before the score of your team is shown. But at least you can look at other game updates in that minute, and you end up saying things like "Oh, I see Charlton have equalised". Of course this all can be traced back to the old radio days when plucky BBC types would try to inform fans what Nat Lofthouse and colleagues were up to, and to aid them they divided the pitch into imaginary squares so the listener would have an idea of where the ball was. Every time it went out for a goal kick the keeper picked it up and hence the ball was 'back to square one', which is where we get that saying from.

But the king of football text updates is without doubt the mighty Grandstand vidiprinter. I have fond memories of watching that flickering asterisk and the accompanying electronic rattling sound as another score came in from around the country - "SC2: Alloa 0 East Fife.........0". The confusion when it would broadcast rugby results "Blimey! Leicester have scored 24 goals!", the tension as the time of each update moved towards - and then past 4:45pm, the excitement of the GOAL FLASH..."Oh, is it Rovers?......no", the confusion of the acronyms for each league "What league is DML then?" - and the classic moment where the vidiprinter kept repeating the line "There is a fire", dismissed with a suave remark by Desmond Lynam. Ahh, happy days.

Where's the chicken?

Athlete


On Friday night I went to a gig with my flatmate Gerard, at the Gaelic Club in Surry Hills, which I once heard referred to as Sydney's 'Bohemian Quarter'. The band playing were Athlete, a UK band I'd heard in passing but decided to see them live. Gerard has what can only be described as an eclectic musical taste, favouring acts that fall into the category of performance art. So I decided that it was my duty to indoctrinate him into the world of generic musical four-pieces and we both went along.

Athlete came on at about 10:30 and played for just over an hour, and I thought they were brilliant. Maybe it's partly due to the length of time it's been since I saw a 'proper' gig (no offence there, Benihana) but I really enjoyed it, despite the heat. Music nights in small venues are always going to be hot, but host one in a muggy Australian night and it's even worse. But we got through it, and at the end I asked Gerard what he thought. His verdict? 'It could have used a trombone-playing chicken to liven things up'. I ask you...

Extra Time

The world game


The Champions League football has restarted in Europe after a break for winter, and there are some potentially classic matchups. Being starved of the beautiful game over here, I was pleased to see that SBS were showing one of the games (SBS is by far the best Australian TV station - their news has news from other countries). Of course because it's in Europe the game was in the early hours over here, kicking off at 6:35am. That's about the time I usually get up anyway, so I figured I'd get up a bit earlier and at least be able to watch the first half of Manchester United against AC Milan. But for some reason despite setting my alarm, it didn't go off, and I was late for work. This is why people hate Manchester United. But there was no real harm done as thankfully I woke at 8am, instead of noon - which would have been interesting. So I legged it down Oxford Street and walked straight onto a train, getting to work at 9am. So if I stay late tonight I'll not have lost any time - or more importantly, money. So things worked out - and Man Utd lost as well, so it's all good...

An LOTR frenzy

My precioussss....


Why would people brave pouring rain to stand in line outside a museum at 9:30am on a Sunday? Why, the global phenomenon that is the Lord of the Rings, of course. The LOTR exhibition has been on for a few months, so foolishly I thought it would be quiet - but of course not, it was crowded. Being the canny sort, I went to the end of the exhibition first and managed to see most of it before the crowds caught up. It was good, too - which I'm glad it was for the $20 entrance fee. They had all the costumes, artwork, a 'life-size' cave troll model, weapons etc. I got to see in close-up the handiwork of my namesake and multiple-Oscar winner Richard Taylor. What that man can do with latex. Did you know that they made over 2000 pairs of feet for just the four main Hobbit characters? That a six-foot long model of a ruined mill that took three months to build was in the film for two seconds? No wonder films cost so much money. Of course they make a lot of that back through merchadising, and naturally there was a special LOTR giftshop you had to walk through to leave, which had everything from copies of the book to LOTR trivial pursuit (I admit to being tempted by the LOTR Top Trumps, but only out of nostalgia). George Lucas has a lot to answer for...

Life in the office

Let's hear it for the Neon Tetra!


So I'm back in the swing of working in an office again, and even though it's physically a long way from where I'm used to working, I'm learning that offices are the same everywhere. The same types of characters seem to exist in every workplace. An odd one I've noticed is the person you vaguely know, and only ever talk to about one subject. All your conversations are somehow limited to one thing you've got in common, and never seem to alter - so much so that you notice that person coming your way and immediately start thinking of that topic to prepare yourself.

In this office, that person is another Brit, and our subject (predictably) is sport. He came up to me this morning and said 'So I see England lost in the rugby again'. I completely threw him by replying that I don't like rugby, and it didn't matter to me if England lose (sorry Dad). But we rallied by talking about cricket and Rovers somehow scoring three goals in a game on Saturday. After that, he left.

It's a strange way to talk with someone - I remember when I used to work in a food distribution warehouse and the man in charge of where the deliveries had to be left was a real angry type - especially with us students. He used to moan at us for leaving anything in the wrong place, until one day he suddenly mentioned that his hobby was keeping tropical fish. I told him about my fishkeeping background, and he never shouted at me again - from then on all we talked about was fish.

The other new year

Two Chinese dragons share a joke at the parade

Kung Hei Fat Choy one and all, as it's the Chinese New Year once again. In the UK it's not really a big thing amongst the general public - but over here there are lots more Asian influences, so more celebrations. I've just come back from the annual parade to celebrate the start of the new year - 2005 is the year of the Rooster. It was a great spectacle - lots of drums and shouting, firecrackers and dancing dragons. Check out the pictures on my photo website...

My last friend from my hostel days moved on this weekend - that's what happens when you make friends with fellow travellers, of course. My plans are coming together for the trip to New Zealand in May, so I'll be moving on soon too (although I'll be coming back of course). It struck me the other day how great this position is - I can basically plan to go anywhere I want, the only limit I have is how much money I can scrape together. I'm so glad I decided to come out here - it's one of the best things I ever did, and I'm enjoying every rooster-filled minute...

More plans afoot...

Next on the list...


At work I've now progressed onto different types of forms and different spreadsheets, but still with the same opening, sorting and entering of data. But it's still easy work, the kind you can switch off and coast through - well, not entirely switch off obviously. They seem to like what I do, as my contract has been extended here for the full three months allowed under my visa constraints, so I'm guaranteed here until the end of April, which is good.

By that time I'll need to get away again I'm sure (I can start to feel that need now), and of course the money I'll have earned from the paper-sorting business should give me some travel fundage. The fairly obvious location to visit is New Zealand, as it's nearby, cheap and can be done in a few weeks. Every traveller I've met here has gone from Australia across the Tasman - there's really no avoiding it. So in May I'll be doing the same, and I'm looking forward to it already...

Working for the man

The fairies are out there...


I've been at the pensions place for just over a week now, and things have settled down into the daily routine. Open letters...sort into piles...enter onto spreadsheet...repeat. But as I said before, I don't mind this particularly as the money is good for a temp job (I got paid for the first time on Thursday) and as you can imagine, it has a stress level of zero. And there's the walking of course. I also quite like the commuting on the train. I sympathise with people who have to go across London on the Tube twice a day, as compared to them my daily commute is dead easy. Sydneysiders are always having a go at the train system (as most train users do), but I've always found them to be good. My daily journey takes about 9 minutes, and trains run every four minutes - so what have I got to complain about?

The other temp in the office is a middle-aged woman from New Zealand called Laurie. When I told her one of the prime motivations for me working was to earn the money necessary to go to New Zealand, she started telling me places worth visiting. By a co-incidence she's always wanted to visit Scotland, as she has distant relatives in the Shetlands (which are as different from Sydney as I can imagine). I found a map of Scotland, and started pointing out highlights - Dundee, Livingston, Stranraer - that kind of thing. She pointed at the Western Isles and said 'They have fairies out there', which was news to me. 'Fairies?' I asked. 'Yes - you can ketch a fairy to the islinds' she replied. You've got to love that Kiwi accent...

Wet and wild

I didn't take this...


There was some staggering weather here yesterday - people who think Australia is sunny and warm every day (and I was certainly in that group before I came here) can get very surprised sometimes. It started off with a thunderstorm in the early morning, so I woke to blinding flashes from outside - five, six at least per rumble of thunder. After walking to the station in the rain it cleared up, and apparently reached 30C - but of course I was inside an air-conditioned office all day.

About half an hour before I left, the sky went grey, and the building got suddenly thrashed by heavy rain and gales - what the TV weathermen here call a storm cell. So I got wet again - this time very wet, as the downpour turned into a deluge that caused flash flooding in the CBD streets. My half-hour walk from Town Hall station (I didn't go over the bridge) got me as wet as I've ever been - and I had an umbrella. Although it could have been worse, I saw two Chinese girls get drenched by a taxi driving through a flooded gutter. I was going to a basketball game, but I was so wet at this point I didn't fancy sitting in a cold sports hall for a couple of hours in a wet shirt, so I went home. As I was arriving in Paddington, the rain stopped and the storm carried itself out into the Pacific. This morning, it's all sweetness in the city, and I heard on the radio that dust storms had been reported in Northern NSW. It's not all sunny and 25C every day here...

A day in the life of Lenny Utomo

Part of the route home...


The day before Australia Day I got a call from one of the many temp agencies I had signed up with - one of the two I'd met in person - I've still had no response from the six I signed up with online. They had a job for me! Starting the day after Australia Day, no less. So I jumped at it.

I'm working at a pension company (which I won't name as blogging about your work has been in the papers back home as not a good idea). It's based in the North Sydney suburb of Milson's Point, just at the far end of the Harbour Bridge. I turned up on Thursday morning after my first ever train-based commute (ten minutes and two stops, but very full). They gave me an ID pass with the name Lenny Utomo crossed out with marker pen, and I was in.

The work isn't exactly demanding, being temp-standard. I was put to work opening letters and then sorting them into piles based on the response of the writer. But hey, I need the money, and it's a pretty good rate for temps in Sydney apparently. The people there are great, and I can listen to music, so it's not too bad. Plus I can walk home! People who know me know how keen/mad I am on walking to and from work, and this job I can walk home via the Harbour Bridge and through the central Hyde Park, so I'm well happy. It takes me about 70 minutes, so it's similar to my old Edinburgh walk I did for all those years. Except it's in 25C heat, which is never similar to Edinburgh...

Australia Day

Australia Day and the packed harbour

The 26th of January is Australia Day, the once-yearly celebration that's a bit like the 4th of July in the US. I asked my flatmate why people celebrated it, but he had no idea, so I watched the TV news to find out. Apparently it was the date that the first fleet of convicts landed on Australian soil in 1788. I doubt they were celebrating at the time, but these days it's a national public holiday and the barbeques are put through their paces. The pubs were all full when I passed them at 9am, anyway.

I took a walk down to the harbour to watch the procession of boats and ships. It was a good spectacle - there were dozens of them, from large naval destroyers from the base at Wolloomoolloo to tiny dingys and canoes. According to the paper there were even two men paddling around in an inflatable garden swimming pool, sitting on crates of beer. The police launch stopped them, but let them go.

Everywhere was packed, there were fairs, classic cars on display, music, fireworks, the whole lot. Someone asked me if the UK has a similar event, and the answer really is no. Nobody gets worked up about St George's Day (most people won't even know when it is), only people over 60 care about the Queen's birthday. Really the closest I could think of was Bonfire night, which isn't really a national celebration so much as a celebration of anti-terrorism. How apt for these times.

The quiet and the storm

A storm sweeps through Sydney, as seen from our back garden

For the past few days Sydney has been once again suffering from some decidedly un-Sydneylike weather - heavy rain and storms. On Sunday it rained almost all day, in the morning it was coming down in torrents. There's something good about lying in bed listening to the rain battering the windows, and not having to get up. Lots of thunder and lightening too. It takes the edge off the heat, so I'm not complaining too much.

Still waiting for that call from the temp agencies. It's a difficult time to look for work, as (and this came as a surprise to me) people in Sydney often take long holidays at the New Year, until Australia Day - which is tomorrow - the 26th of January. Workers in the UK don't get a month's holiday at Christmas, that's for sure. But I should get something to start next week, as things will be busy - due no doubt to people returning to a month's worth of work...

On the temp trail

You can't escape them for long...


It's been a few years since I was last at the mercy of a temp agency. In fact, the agency that time put me at the NHS in Trinity where I've been on and off ever since, so there's a reason to be nervous. But thanks to the visa restrictions placed on foreigners over here a temp agency is my only way of getting employment - no 'proper' employer wants someone who can only work for 12 weeks, after all.

The other week I signed up with seven agencies - 5 online by submitting my CV, and 2 that I called as they'd been recommended by friends. I got two responses (I'll let you guess which two). I had my first meeting yesterday, so got dressed up in my Sunday best and headed over. In an anonymous office on the 17th floor of a CBD tower, I met with a bloke who fortunately for me was sympathetic with the lot of the working traveller, as he'd just come back from cycling around Vietnam.

After a chat about my skills and what I was after, he went over my CV and then had me take 'the tests' - which any temp knows only too well. Seeing as it had been years since I did the tests, I had no idea of my scores so had to take them again. They consist of a five-minute typing test, data entry test, and alphanumeric test - then a 35-question test on MS Access and another on Excel. I'm a pretty good typer, thanks to years of hurriedly-typed illicit emails, but the test was cunningly desgined to contain lots of works like disappearing, necessary, superfluous and other nightmares for spellers (I'm not sure those are right even now).

The data entry test I aced, after all those fun years typing in dental treatment forms at the NHS - I scored a 'very good' with 8816 keystrokes an hour - not that I ever want to have to do that for an hour. Fortunately for my prospective temping I also did very well on the Access and Excel tests, so maybe that's where my potential employment will be going. The bloke came back and said my results were 'excellent' and that 'with results like this, you'll be snapped up in no time'. He said things were speeding up in Sydney so much that I should have work by Monday...

Something on the horizon

The NSW/Queensland day-nighter at the Telstra (Olympic) Stadium

Almost immediately after I wrote my last post bemoaning the slowness of temp agencies here, I got an email from one of the seven I joined asking to meet with me. So this week I have two meetings with prospective employers - both of whom said that despite the slow nature of January's in Sydney, they have plenty of jobs in. So hopefully I should get something fairly soon. This weekend I had a relatively quiet time, on Saturday I went to another cricket match - this time at the Telstra Stadium, the Olympic athletics stadium, which they have converted into a cricket venue. It's an impressive stadium, especially at night with all the lights on - but for a domestic cricket match with 15,000 spectators, it was a tad empty...

Starting the daily grind

An entirely unrelated photo...


After the sheer excitement of a trip away, it's now time to get back to the serious business of getting a job here in Sydney. Of course the one thing going for me before I arrived was the NSW Cancer Council, and the contacts there I'd softened up. After my interview in November, which went very well, I was quite hopeful of getting something with them - but alas the dreaded 'thin envelope' was posted out (to England, as it happened) and that was the end of that. Having visited them, I think the reason was because their unit is so small - for instance they have about 25 employees and 1 statistician. Our smoothly-running NHS dream-team in Edinburgh has almost 70 people (that's just our unit, there are over 2000 in the building), and we have 15 full-time statisticians just for our Cancer team. So when they said they couldn't fit me in, I don't think they were kidding.

Still, it was a disappointment, but it's not the end of the world. The next step is to start wading through the various temp agencies and become a piece of meat in the system again. I sent my CV off to half a dozen places this morning, so we'll see what happens. I called a few of them, but here it seems to be CV's first, then personal contact. Fair enough - I think my CV is pretty good so I'll wait and see (not that there's a lot else I can do)...

Politics old and new

Anzac Parade with the new Parliament building in the distance

Another hard day slogging along the roads of Canberra today, I must have walked miles. I started off at the Old Parliament House, which was built in 1927 and lasted until 1988, when the Australian MP's decided they would be better off in a swanky new parliament building on another site (where have I heard that before?). It was an interesting old building, although I know almost nothing about Australian politics (apart from Harold Holt vanishing at sea). It has all been opened up, and you can get inside the Prime Minister's Office and the Cabinet rooms.

After that I walked up the considerable slope to the New Australian Parliament, which cost a whopping $1.1bn - these Parliaments are expensive affairs. Another guided tour but with less to see - the current debating chambers were open, but as this is the summer recess there was nothing going on. It was still quite interesting though.

In the afternoon I went to see another couple of places, but before that had become completely disorientated by the identical-nature of Canberra's street pattern. I had wanted to find somewhere to get lunch, but after walking for ages in a promising area I found only the Sri Lankan consulate. Eventually I did find a row of cafes and food shops - and they were crammed with people. So that's where everyone had been hiding!

One quick thing - I've now been in about six tourist attractions, museums and so on - and in only one was there an entrance fee. The vast majority of the things to see here are free. The exception was the Old Parliament House, which cost a decidedly reasonable 81p to enter.

A day out in Sydmelperadbrisho

The sobering National War Memorial, Canberra

In March 1913 the wife of the Australian Govenor-General mounted a crimson-draped platform and declared in a clear English voice: 'I name the capital of Australia, Canberra – the accent is on the Can', so ending over ten years of negociations. After accepting the location for the new planned city - an equal distance between Sydney and Melbourne, the plans had been submitted, and now at last the name had been decided. There had been plenty of wacky suggestions - 'Meladneyperbane', 'Cookaburra', 'New London', but eventually the aboriginal name for meeting place, Canberra, was decided upon.

Yes, I've spent the day in museums! I now know all there is to know about the selection process for building a new capital. I've seen details of Australian history from the first fleet in 1788 to a portrait of Kylie Minogue in the Australian National Gallery (I kid you not). I even learned that people were transported here as criminals for such heinous crimes as 'impersonating an Egyptian'. I didn't even realise that was illegal.

Canberra is a nice place, however I'm still wondering where everyone is. They must all be out in the suburbs somewhere, because the centre of the city is still as quiet as it was yesterday. In the morning I went to the Australian Museum, and then later to the lake shore and the sobering National War Memorial. It's easy to get around, although it involves long walks - there are hardly any buses and no trains at all. With all the people shoved out at the edges, away from the wide boulevards, maybe that's why other Australians are snooty of Canberra - they don't like the design. Which seems a shame, as it was specifically designed for the purpose of being a national capital. But more of that tomorrow...

On the road again

Lake Burley-Griffin, Canberra

Although the whole living and working in Sydney thing is my main focus, let's not forget that I'm also here to see a bit of the world outside the harbour city. So with that in mind I've come on a three hour bus trip to the nation's capital, Canberra. I'll be here for three days exploring and generally mooching about, trying to discover just why most Australians look on it with disdain. How does it compare to Sydney? Well, maybe I can already answer that.

The first impression you get on Canberra is the space - for a start it's surrounded by mountains, and the regimented street design makes it seem like a city in North America. With good reason as it turns out, the city plan was chosen from a design submitted by an American, Walter Burley Griffin - who also designed Washington DC. There are plenty of long, straight roads with trees down the sides and a central strip of bushes. In fact, this seems to be what 90% of Canberra looks like - the other 10% is a lake...called, incidentally, Lake Burley Griffin.

But it's a nice place, it's cleaner and quieter than Sydney - you walk around the city centre and wonder where all the people are. My arrival co-incided with a custom car rally - who decided the long, wide, straight roads would make Canberra the perfect location for hundreds of souped-up cars? Not the police, I wouldn't have thought. The car owners were loving it though. Even as I write this I can here revved-engines piling down the street outside. Max power!!

After the big night

Photos of fireworks always come out like this

Well here we are in 2005. The other night I walked several miles trying to find a good spot to see the fireworks, or so it seemed. There was a large public area at the top end of King's Cross, in Embarkation Park, so I went there first, at about 8:30. I actually went there at about 1pm and already there were people queueing to get in, so I don't know why I was surprised when it was busy. I managed to get a decent view of the 9pm display - they have an earlier fireworks thing for people who don't want to stay until midnight. They were pretty good, I've got to say.

After that, I really couldn't wait there for three hours, as being King's Cross it was full of drunken Brits. I dunno, am I getting old? Maybe. Anyway, so I left and walked into the city to see if I could squeeze into one of the good spots by the Opera House or Circular Quay. Absolutely not, as it turned out - it was madness. There were dozens of police herding people away from the Opera House area, which had filled to capacity by 5pm. That's 7hours before the midnight display. The bottom of the hill at Macquarie Street was fenced off, with large flashing traffic signs saying things like 'AREA FULL' and 'NO ALCOHOL'.

So I walked around for a bit more, looking at the crowds, and eventually found myself back at King's Cross. The park I was in before, you just couldn't get near it - so I settled for a space on the road with a good view of the bridge. The sheer volume of people had stopped traffic on the road, as everyone waited for midnight. When it came, it was a good display, although I could only see the bridge - the other fireworks were obscured by trees (which is why the best areas had been full for seven hours). Sadly the total lack of wind meant the smoke obscured the finale - a 'disco ball' suspended from the bridge. But it was a good display, and a good way to bring in the new year.

Past events on NYE

Montmartre sunset


It seems like most people either really love NYE, or can't be bothered with the whole idea. There is a pressure to go out and do something fun and memorable, and of course anything in a public area usually involved drunken idiots (unless you're one of the drunks). I'm not sure where I fall here, but as much as I like going out, it wouldn't bother me too much if I didn't. Thinking about it though, over the years I've been quite lucky with my NYE outings. Here are a few that stick in the memory.

- Paris 2003/04
I'd never been abroad for the new year before, but taking a cheap flight to Paris turned out to be a great idea. It helped that we knew someone out there, and managed to borrow a studio flat in Montmartre for a few nights, as one of her friends was going away. If you've ever seen a Paris studio flat, you'll know how small they are - and there were three of us in it. Of course, most of the time we were out and about, with Erika showing us around Paris. The best bits were the walks, wandering around Montmartre, the Seine, the old cemetaries - all in freezing weather. At NYE itself, we went to a party and left at about 3am realising we had no idea where we were, or how to get back to where we were staying. We ended up wandering around wishing random people 'Bon annee' until the Metro restarted at 6am and we could go home. Actually now I remember - the best thing about Paris were the crepes...

- Edinburgh 2001/02
As usual the entire centre of Edinburgh was fenced off, reserved for ticket holders only. Although free, these are hard to come by, so when in the 'burgh we usually have to think of other things to do on the big night. A couple of years ago we met up with our friend Lou who knew a bunch of medical students who lived at the top of a tenement on the corner of Forrest Road, by the new museum. We turned up to their party, and found a rickety wooden ladder poking up into a skylight. They were all up on the roof - so we scrambled up the ladder and emerged on top of the five-story building's flat roof. After a few drinks amogst the chimneys, the midnight fireworks display went off, leaving us in a prime location, with a great view across the entire city.

- Manchester 2000/01
The last time I was out on NYE with my friends from home was almost five years ago. We decided to go through to Manchester as there was an outdoor concert at the Castlefields site by the canal, featuring the best of Manchester bands at the time - Alpine Stars, Doves and Badly Drawn Boy. After a few drinks, we got there just as Doves were starting and managed to get to the front for their set, which was brilliant. The headliner was Badly Drawn Boy - otherwise known as Damon Gough, a great songwriter, but with a shambolic stage routine. He came out almost inebriated and played a couple of songs, then came to the front of the stage and pointed straight at my mate Alex, who was standing next to me. "Are you not f***ing enjoying yourself then? I'm here to f***ing entertain you lot, you bastards" he shouted. Alex (who's well over six feet and 15stone) had been standing there, arms folded, listening to the music. Badly Drawn Boy shouted a bit more, then started playing again - but the crowd started to turn on him. When someone hit him with a (plastic) pint glass, he flipped - unplugging his guitar and hurling the pedal into the crowd, along with a beer bottle and his mobile phone (which landed about a foot in front of me). He shouted more stuff at Alex, the person who threw the glass, and the crowd in general, and stormed off. That was it, gig over, at 15 minutes to midnight. The organisers hastily played some music over the p/a and waited for the new year. Alex told me later that he had been enjoying it, and didn't know what the fuss was about.

The New Year Gap

BANG!


After Christmas, we're now in the 'nothing week' - the few days between Xmas and the New Year. The only things open now are the shops - Sydney is as packed with shoppers as any other sale-crazed city. Apart from that, all offices and attractions are closed, which leaves less to do for someone like me than usual. I could always go and look through the shops, I suppose. Maybe I'll wait until the pandemonium quietens down a bit first, though.

Well it's New Year's Eve tomorrow, and I'm still not sure what's my plans are. At the moment I think it boils down to two options - I could either go and watch the fireworks on my own, or go with Amy to a party in Manly. Pros and cons time - the Sydney fireworks are spectacular, and this could literally be the only chance I get to see them. Living in Edinburgh you get used to mega fireworks displays (apart from the last one we were at, which was held in driving rain and heavy clouds), so it would be great to see them. Downside here is that all my Australian friends are fireworked-out, so won't be going. So do I see the fireworks (which I really want to) on my own, or go to a party where there'll at least be people, but no fireworks. Hmmm...I still haven't decided.

On another note, something that keeps happening to me is being asked for directions. Now there's a definate precedent here - when I was in Paris for New Year last time out I was asked for directions five times in four days, including in French (and actually managed to answer in French, thanks to my schoolboy days). It happens here too - I'm not sure what it is, maybe I look trusting or knowledgeable, or probably geeky enough to know where everything is. Maybe it's because I don't look like a tourist and walk at 2mph looking up all the time, blocking the pavement and getting in the way (but that's a story for another time). Anyway, for whatever reason, it keeps happening. It's not as if I get it right most of the time, either.

A (too) busy Boxing Day

They left without me...


Well, it didn't quite happen for the old yachting today. I got a call from Amy saying that her Dad wasn't going out on the harbour this year to watch the start of the race - so no hobnobbing with blazered-elite types for me after all. I didn't really have a Plan B, but I threw one together and decided to make my own way out to Watson's Bay and then walk to South Head, at the edge of the harbour. South Head (and the opposite North Head) are the huge rocky cliffs that make up the entrance to what is usually called Sydney Harbour, but officially is called Port Jackson.

Because of their location and height they make the perfect spot for viewing the start of the yacht race, which begins in the middle of the harbour. As you can imagine, this leads to large crowds, and I had an unsuccessful wait at a bus stop in King's Cross as all the Watson's Bay-bound buses were so packed they weren't stopping. So no yacht race for me - instead I went back home and indulged in the other traditional Australian Boxing Day tradition - watching the cricket on the telly.

Christmas Day in Sydney

Christmas dinner, Australian style - Merry Christmas!

Well it's the big day at last, Christmas is finally here. I had been wondering what to do for a while - going to a beach was always an option. I didn't really want to join the hordes of pissed Brits at Bondi (and besides this year the police have banned all drinking, eating and smoking on Bondi beach over Christmas as last year about 35 people had to be rescued from the sea). Of course I could have gone somewhere else. But the weather was against that - as after days of sunny warm weather today was dull, grey and cold. Admittedly it's the weather I usually expect at the seaside, just not in this country.

So instead I opened my presents - I wasn't expecting anything but Santa managed to find me over here (maybe he reads this blog too). So that was a great start to the day (well, it was more the middle of the day by that point). Then it was time for Cristmas dinner - seeing as I was on my own (both my flatmates had gone to their families for the festivities), I didn't bother with all the complex turkey stuff, and did myself an enormous steak instead. Very nice it was too.

After that I went for a walk, wandering around the deserted city. Things were busy around the tourist areas - the Harbour and Opera House especially - but the rest of the streets in the city were very quiet. What with Boxing Day tomorrow falling on a Sunday, most of the sales start on Monday, so it might be just as quiet tomorrow. Plus the Sydney-Hobart yacht race starts tomorrow, so plenty if people will be at that - me included. So watch this space...

From bay to bay

How lazy can you get?


This afternoon was dry and warm, like most days recently, so I decided to go for a walk around my new neighbourhood. Living in the centre of Sydney you're never far from the harbour in one way or another, so I walked down the hill from Paddington to have a look at the 'Bays'. First up was Rushcutter's Bay, only a few minutes from my front door. The bays and inlets of the harbour all follow the same sort of pattern - a few extremely expensive flats or houses on the tree-lined edges, a ring of gleaming BMW's and Mercedes, and then a multitude of yachts and other boats moored in the bay. Rushcutter's Bay also has a cricket oval, and a game was going on - although a couple of the fielders were standing next to beer bottles - so I don't think it was a first-class game.

I walked along the side of the bay for a bit and was staggered by how many people use the harbour on a weekend. Every kind of boat was out there, zig-zagging between the ferries and each other. And yet there were still dozens of yachts tied up in each bay - but that's the Eastern Suburbs for you. The next one of which was Double Bay, which has a reputation in Sydney for being full of SUV-driving snobs. As it's the run-up to Christmas (and therefore the run up to the Sydney-Hobart yacht race), the yacht clubs were packed full of blazer wearing toffs enjoying their Saturday afternoon. Further on along the exclusive road was Rose Bay, and to give you an idea of the calibre of resident here, there was a hillside house with it's own funicular railway down to the street - to save the owners the hassle of walking. At first I thought they might have been disabled - but this was no giant Stannah stairlift as there were half a dozen steps at the bottom. Thora Hird must be spinning in her grave.

In between all of these opulent housefronts was the one place 'normal' locals could go - Blackburn Gardens in Woolhara. A small area of trees and lawns led down a steep slope to an area of beach about 10 feet across by 40 feet long, which was packed with people - presumably those who can't afford their own yacht (or funicular railway).

Finally, a correction. It has been brought to my attention that in the UK a Daddy Long Legs isn't a spider, but a cranefly, which is also harmless. My sincere apologies to all concerned... ; )

Our eight-legged friends

The Daddy Longlegs in our bathroom


As a continent, Australia is famous for it's assorted deadly creatures. Just yesterday on the news an Adelaide 18yr old being towed behind a speedboat on a rubber ring was killed by two Great White sharks. There are poisonous jellyfish, snakes, even the deadly blue-ringed octopus. And that's just in the sea - on land there are all kinds of things that can ruin your week - the most obvious being spiders.

In my flat, there's almost always a Daddy Long Legs hanging from the bathroom ceiling (why are spiders attracted to bathrooms?). It's body is about the size of a peanut, but the legs stretch as wide as your palm. There's an urban myth that these are utterly deadly, but have too small fangs to pucture human skin. Apparently (thanks to Google) this isn't true, although they do eat larger spiders. They look impressive though, far more 'spidery' than the weedy-looking things that pass for Daddy Long Legs in the UK.

There's also a resident spider in the living room. Being a man, I naturally have a favoured chair to sit and watch TV, read the paper or whatever. It's one thing that separates the sexes - women seem happy to sit anywhere, but men have their chair - and that's that. It just so happens my chair is next to the wall and the web of a Cupboard Spider - a relative of the feared Redback and Black Widow species. I Googled that one very quicky after spotting it. Thankfully for my TV viewing they are only mildly dangerous - "their bite can be very painful, with symptoms similar to those of Redback Spider bite (but without the dangerous effects). Cupboard spider bites have also been implicated in cases of minor skin necrosis." But having watched it at length, it only ever emerges about an inch from it's burrow - so I should be alright. According to my flatmate we have a large Huntsman that visits now and again which he casually described as 'hand-sized'. Now that would disturb anyone's TV viewing...

Two months to the day

Two months down, ten to go...


It's the 14th of December today, which means I've been in Sydney for two months. It doesn't really feel like it, it seems like I've only just arrived really. Mind you, now that I'm in a flat rather than the hostel I feel more like I live here instead of just visiting. The hostel I was in is fully booked over the festive period, which means people in there now are turfed out and have to find somewhere else during the busy period. I bet few of them had planned for that. My mate Rob (who was in my room when I arrived and is still there - he's been in the same bunk for 3 months) is having to move somewhere else - even if there were room he refuses to pay the hiked Christmas price of $35 a night (10 pounds), up from $23.

Speaking of money, I had an email from work today which said 'we know you are on a Career Break, but due to the late submission of your paperwork you have been overpaid by 421pounds this month. Please send the agency a cheque as soon as possible'. That's nice of them, maybe I won't send them a postcard after all. If I paid them $421 I wonder if they would notice. Probably not. Mind you, the money's in my UK account so I can't spend it (shame).

I was in the supermarket the other day and made a great discovery - cheap instant noodles. They come in packets and each has a sachet of dubious powder that makes the boiling noodle water into a broth. Anyway, you can combine these cheap noodles with all kinds of things, meat ,vegetables - they are just like noodles you buy in the UK (I have seen noodles before, that isn't my point) - but 10p a packet! Yes, 10p! That's US19c for my American readers. I thought that was great. Not that I'm cheap or anything, but when you can buy noodles for $0.26 anybody would be excited by that. Wouldn't they? 10p?

What I did on my weekend

Number 14 overtakes nmuber 12...

This weekend I had a busy time - on Saturday I met up with the few Blackburn fans who live in Sydney (I've now increased their number by 25%), and on Sunday I took the trip out to a circuit in Western Sydney to watch a day's motor racing.

The Rovers meet-up was in an old pub in the Rocks, and consisted of me and three others - one bloke in his mid-30's called Vic and two 'old-timers' who were probably in their late 50's (sorry Dad). It was good to meet them, as they gave me advice about where to go in Australia "Don't go to Queensland mate, it's shit" and we had a discussion about where the Rovers are going wrong this season. Four hours later, it was getting dark. After drinking five pints of Coopers Sparkling (which tastes like bathwater, but I was being polite) I left - but it was a great afternoon talking about Rovers greats from the 60's, what Ewood Park looked like in the 50's, and Australian rugby league. I spent a lot of time listening...

The next day mildly hungover I got up at 7am to catch a train out to Blacktown in the far Western suburbs. Sydney really does go on for ever - space in Australia is abundant, so new housing estates are free to spread out. As a result Sydney is about the same area as Paris (but with about 1/5 the population). The Eastern Creek Raceway was hosting the final round of the V8 Supercars (touring cars), so I went along. Entry was $43 (P18.00), and there were plenty of races. It was very hot, and there was no shade, but it was still fun. The only other motor race I've been to was the 1997 Le Mans 24hr race - and although these V8's are nothing like the GT sportscars, they are still loud and fast. There was also an 8-car pileup in a vintage car support race, so even the people who came for the crashes went home happy (not me, of course....)

Death at the Beach

Cronulla beach, with dead birds in foreground

Seeing as the temperatures had stabilised in the mid-20's, I decided to go for another walk yesterday. I took the train from King's Cross to the end of the line at Cronulla, and walked along the beach. The plan had been to walk all the way round the bay to Botany Bay National Park - but it was several miles (this is Australia), so I walked along for a couple of hours and came back. It was all very picturesque - dark clouds were hovering over the land, and made everything look very dramatic. There were a few surfers out, and one wake boarder - the seemingly suicidal pastime of strapping a small surfboard to a large kite and then being dragged through the water. The man had a helmet on - and no wonder - he was blasting through the waves parallel to the shore at a staggering speed. He probably got to Botany Bay in minutes.

On every beach you see unfortunate things that have been washed up, and Cronulla was no exception. Walking along the strand line there was a multitude of dead things that had been caught out by the tide, or a storm, or who knows what. The most surprising were the seabirds - I would estimate there were over 100 dead birds on the stretch of beach I walked on. They were all the same species, which I didn't recognise. Also washed up were lots of cuttlefish bones, a few bloated puffer fish, and countless insects that flew out to sea by mistake. A large group of seagulls were picking them off. There were also a lot of the ubiquitous stingers (small blue jellyfish). It wasn't until the walk back that I found out what happened to the seabirds - there was an unfortunate bird still alive, lying on it's back feebly waving it's feet and trying to flap it's wings. I thought about putting it out of it's misery, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. But I solved the mystery - it has been stung by a jellyfish and was paralysed. Presumably a group of birds had been fishing and stung by a swarm of jellyfish, and then drowned. Such is nature, I suppose.

Five bad things about Australia

BUZZ OFF!!!


1. Flies
Without doubt the worst thing about Sydney - every time you venture into a park the flies descend and start to annoy. From my limited knowledge of flying insects, they seem to be large fruit flies - which makes me wonder what part of me they confuse with fruit. Evidently it's the face, as these pests have the habit of going for your eyes, nose, or ears. You wave them away, and they fly to another part of your face. I've found through experience that after four or five landings, they fly off - so you just have to keep swishing. There's no chance of swatting them. Maybe a hat with corks in in the answer. Hmm....

2. Bank charges
Banks over here have some nerve - they charge you for keeping your money, and then charge you for giving it back. My typical account has a $5 monthly fee. Also I have 15 free 'transactions' a month (ATM withdrawls, counter services) - after that you get charged 60c for each 'transaction'. My rent goes out of my account via direct debit - except each time that happens I get charged $1.80. OK - these amounts are hardly a lot - but it's the principle.

3. The heat
I think I've covered this - I'll just say that last night the temperature at midnight was 25C and that it reached 30C at 10:30am this morning. I think you get the picture.

4. TV schedules
Very odd this - it must be a nightmare for people trying to set the timer on a VCR. Sometimes programmes start up to ten minutes early, and some finish later than in the TV guides. There are no explanations for this. Sometimes random news or sports updates are added. A programme will start, and immediately after the opening credits will go to an ad-break. Similarly there's always an ad-break with about a minute to go before the programme ends, which can be great if there's a cliff-hanger ending.

5. Australians
Joking!


Edit - 02/07/2009

This post was written almost five years ago as a joke - if I'd realised at the time it would become the top article if you Google for 'bad things about Australia' I would have put a bit more thought and effort into it. Don't take it too seriously...
Richard

Edit - 22/06/2010

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Heating up even more

The Harbour Bridge, melting in the sun

'It's only spring' is a saying you hear quite a bit on Australian television where the weather's concerned - usually with regard to unseasonally high temperatures. Last night's forecast used the phrase several times, as today was predicted to be the hottest individual day for over twenty years. It was odd looking at a temperature map on a TV weather report covered with numbers above 40. Living in Scotland, if you get numbers higher than 20 you know you're in for a warm day - but 40? Had they put the map up in Farenheidt by mistake? The predicted temperature in Sydney today was 42C - that's 108F in old money. Hence the phrase '...and it's only spring'.

In truth I don't think it was near that hot - but being used to warm temperatures in the high teens, even warm temperatures in the low 30's are very hot. The wind too, as I said before, plays a part - it's odd to feel a hot wind. Where I'm from, wind is cold, biting, gusty. We have wind-chill, not wind-burn. The idea of wind making the temperature rise is a foreign concept to us Brits. Add that with the humidity, which apparently today was only 10%, and you have the same oven-like conditions mentioned below. Australians are of course familiar with this kind of weather - all the pavements have overhanging frontages from the shops that help shade pedestrians, and of course serve as free advertising boards. You become grateful for these, as just walking in the open sun in 40C weather takes it out of you - you can almost hear yourself dehydrating. In the UK you see people walking about everywhere with bottles of water, clutching them protectively. Over here you see the same, only over here - you really need it...

A warm day at the golf

We've all been there...

Last Thursday I spent the day watching the opening round of the Australian Open Golf championship, which by a co-incidence was being held at a golf course just south of Paddington. As it was so close, and of course I had no other plans (the cancer institute has yet to get back to me), I went along. I've never been to a golf tournament before, so I wasn't sure what to do. Do you stand in a place and watch them all come past? Or do you pick a group and walk round with them? I decided if I did the former, all I'd see would be different golfers playing the same shot time after time - so I picked a group at random and followed them round.

They weren't very good - I should say here that the Australian Open isn't like the US Open or The Open. The most famous golfer playing was Peter Lonard, who's scarcely a household name. But it was great fun - apart from the first hole. After watching them tee off (and it's truly amazing how far they hit the ball with those drivers), I went half-way down the first fairway and stood just off the grass in the trees watching the second group tee off. The first player hit his drive, and I could see it coming towards me - but didn't think it would get near me. As it turned out it landed in the rough about ten feet in front of me. I thought that was as close as it would get - but the second player managed to hit the tree I was standing next to (about twenty feet up) and clatter behind me. I chose somewhere else to stand.

It was a good day out though - very hot. You think golf is just walking around taking the occasional swipe - but doing that for four hours in the sun must be exhausting. I was certainly knackered by the time they finished. The weather is starting to get hotter again now - it was 34C today. When it gets like that, any amount of wind seems to make it worse. If you're walking down a street, for example, and come to the edge of a large building - you turn the corner and the wind hits you like when you open an oven door. Today I was stuck on an underground train for ten minutes with no air conditioning, and it was like a sauna. Odd to think that back home it's probably dull, grey and wet. Not that I'm complaining...

Cheap at twice the price

P3.36 well spent...

So what's it like to live in Sydney? In terms of prices, it can be pretty cheap for those of us over from the UK. At the current exchange rate of $1 = P2.37 (no poundsign on the keyboard) certain things are great value. Eating out, for one - thanks to the staggering proliferation of foodcourts, you can always get something cheap. Yesterday for example I had a sandwhich and Coke for $6 and later a Chinese special of fried rice, satay chicken and spicy beef for $5. So my entire food costs for yesterday amounted to a bank-breaking P4.63. Try and beat that in the UK.

In pubs, beer is often $4 a schooner (about half a pint), which is P1.68. In the off-licence (bottle shop) you can get a six-pack of generic Australian lager for P6.30. A return train ticket to the city costs about P1.20 - a single will set you back exactly 93p. Since I've been here, I've been to the cinema for P7, a ABL Pro basketball league game for P3.36 and as I wrote earlier a cricket match featuring the New Zealand international side for $10 (P4.20).

But there are some things that are more expensive. Clothes in shops are more pricey than back home, as are CD's - basically anything that has to be imported. But the expensive things are in the minority, and until I start earning Australian money and the prices for things will come into line with my currency, I'm not complaining one bit. No whingeing from this pom...

When the worse things in life are free

Central Station, Sydney


Today was something of a momentous one for us humble Sydneysiders (as I can call myself thanks to having paid my first rent). We all know commuters like a moan about transport, and those here are no exception. The Sydney train system has been a bone of contention for many years - with the usual problems of late, cancelled and overcrowded trains. They are run by CityRail and funded by the NSW State Government, who are of course the prime targets for commuter's wrath. Things have been building up for a while, and the NSW Premier Bob Carr has realised the terrible train system might well cost him the next State election. With this in mind (I don't think it was an entirely selfless act), today was free travel day on Sydney trains. All the ticket barriers were left open for 24hrs, and everyone could go anywhere for nothing - at a cost to the Government of $2m. Premier Carr said it was a 'charitable' decision to apologise to Sydneysiders for the terrible service.

The result was the same crappy service, but this time for free. The other night I used the trains to get to a party and had to wait 45mins for a three-minute journey because of delays. Apparently this is regular. Of course the trains were extra busy today - I was going to go to the end of the line at Berowra and go for a walk, but the weather wasn't good - so I settled for a day around the city taking as many trains as I could. It was quite good fun walking on and off trains at every opportunity - at one stage I got the train instead of walking one block. So my good intentions for the day became a case of musical trains - but I think over the course of the last few years I've walked around enough to give myself at least one day off...

The Blue Mountains

The view from Echo Point lookout in the Blue Mountains

Yesterday I took a trip out to have a look at the Blue Mountains. There are all kinds of escorted day trips by coach, but I looked at the guidebooks and decided to do my own thing, and get a return train ticket to the main town in the mountains, Katoomba. Because Australian trains travel at about 10mph, it took a couple of hours to get there. The main tourist reason for stopping at Katoomba is the viewing platform at Echo Point, and the Three Sisters. Three large rock pinnacles, they perch on the edge of a huge tree-covered gorge. The view was incredible, despite the ever-present haze that hangs over the trees below. Sadly my colour-blindness prevented me from seeing just how blue they were (the trees looked a normal green to me), but it was an impressive view.

The next part of the day was to walk along the cliff-top path, and into the trees below. This was great, as the path was largely empty and wound through the forest along the ridge, and then down a very long flight of steps cut into the rock, to the valley floor. At the end of the path was a forest boardwalk, and a cable car or train back up to the cliff edge. The forest was very different down here - instead of the gum trees and flowering bushes of the cliff tops, down on the floor of the valley were huge tree ferns and Jurassic-type spiky bushes. It was much cooler, damper, and full of birdsong - in fact I realised later it was the first rainforest I'd ever visited, even if it was a temperate one, not a bona-fide tropical. I finished the walk (which was an hour of climbing down steps and pathways) with the rail trip back to the top - no way I was walking. The Katoomba Gorge railway was originally a mine cart, but has since been converted for tourists. At 52degrees, it's the steepest in the world, and whizzed up the cliff in 60 seconds. Much better than walking...

How to fry an octopus

Mmmm...tasty


The end is in sight for my stay at the hostel, as on Thursday (day after tomorrow) I pick up the keys to my Paddington flat. I'll probably move on Friday, not that it will take long. But like I said, I don't mind staying in the hostel - I'm certainly meeting plenty of people. From what I can gather, it's unusually quiet in the hostels for this time of year - but in dorm 11 of my hostel, we've certainly had plenty of people coming and going. It must be about 15 (all men) since I arrived, almost four weeks ago. At the moment there's just three of us (the dorm sleeps six, in three bunk beds). Rob from near Derby who's been there since September, and a Japanese lad called Kuni who arrived a few days ago. I was talking to him today, he's in the midst of a year touring Australia and is about to fly down to Tasmania to pick fruit for a while as he's run out of money.

As I'm going to Japan next year, I was asking him questions on where to go - and by a stroke of luck it turned out he works as a tour guide, working on buses covering the whole of Eastern Japan. He keeps apologising for his English, which is very good - although when I explained I was a 'statistical researcher ', that had him reaching for his dictionary. One thing we talked about was Japanese food - he seemed bemused that I like it. When I told him I was thinking of going to Osaka, he started talking about the local dish, Okonomiyaki. He tried to explain what it was - "You know octopus? Take that...with wheat flour. Put on hot plate, no water" One of his favourites, he was talking about Takoyaki. A quick Google later (Japan consumes 60% of the global octopus catch) I discovered it's essentially a savoury pancake with all kinds of fillings, octopus is just one variety. After seeing the little guys swimming about in the Aquarium the other day, I was pleased when Kuni told me that Okonomiyaki is also made with other meats, and vegetables...

From the Cross to Paddo

But what does it mean?


Not heard back from the cancer people yet, but they said it would be a few days. I have however found myself somewhere to live, and it was the best place I looked at. I saw it on the weekend, but after expressing an interest was told the day after it had gone. But I got another call afterwards saying that person had pulled out, and would I mind going round again? It turned out it was between me and another girl, and I came out on top (not literally). So I'll be moving in next week sometime - my stay in the Cross is numbered! Actually I don't mind living in the hostel, there's certainly always something going on.

Today I went to Bondi again, as there was a 'sculpture by the sea' exhibition along the coastal path from Bondi to Bronte beach. As ever, I took plenty of photos - so check out the photo site - and even entered one of them in the Sydney Morning Herald photography contest (it was free). Some of the sculptures were very good, some of them plain wierd, and some of them both good and wierd - like the life-sized elephant made out of televisions.

My friend Gillian from my Stirling days is over in Sydney at the moment, on a conference. Not a bad gig, I think you'll agree. I got sent on a conference once when I was in Edinburgh, and it was to Stirling. Talk about a busman's holiday. Anyway, we were sat on a bench by the harbour yesterday when a Chinese couple approached us. I thought at first they wanted me to take a picture of them - but it turned out they wanted a picture of them...and us. They never said why, I presume they'd seen Westerners before, I guess maybe we added some local character. Anyway, the woman came around behind the bench and put her arms around us, the man took the picture (after telling us to smile - which is hard when you're bemused and vaguely worried), and away they went. It seemed to make them happy, but when we left, we walked off in the other direction...

When two days are better than one

NSW against New Zealand at an empty SCG

One of the good things about staying in a city when you have nothing planned for each day is the paper. I read the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) religiously, as it often helps decide what I do. Whether it be a gala dinner, night at the opera, or cricket match, I read about it in the trusty SMH and attend. Admittedly I only went to one of those things, and it wasn't the opera, but you get the idea. On Friday I went to the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) to watch the touring New Zealanders on a warm-up match against New South Wales. It was a great day, sitting up in the Grandstand, and then in the sun, drinking beer and reading the paper (when the Kiwis were batting) - and all for 4pounds. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I went back on Saturday and watched another day - these things can be done with my unhectic schedule.

I didn't go back for a third day however, as I was invited to a birthday Yum Cha brunch in North Sydney. One of Amy's old friends, Jean-Baptiste, was celebrating his anniversaire Chinese-style. If you've never had Yum Cha, it's basically a Chinese version of tapas served at lunchtime, with a lot of shouting. There were 16 of us, half of whom I recognised from my month (one down already) here. You're in a room and the waiters wheel trolleys of food past, shouting what they are through the open door. If you like the sound of what they have, you shout back and they come in and put the food on the table. So we had deep-fried squid, garlic prawns, pork buns, Chinese greens and several others - all at 11am. It was too early in the day for chicken feet, for me. It was great stuff, and the shouting gave it more of a fun atmosphere than normal lunches. Not quite as crazy as the Japanese teppanyaki where you have to catch your food as the chef throws it, but it was Sunday morning after all... .

Exploring a little...but not a lot

The La Perouse museum

Friday was dull, grey and wet - weather I'm of course used to. As it was a day to do things indoors, I took a bus out of the city to the South and visited the small town of La Perouse - which these days has become part of Greater Sydney. Situated on Botany Bay, it is named after a French explorer.

Botany Bay is nothing like you expect - most people think it's the bay Sydney is located in, but that's Port Jackson Bay, about 10 miles North. Botany Bay is where Captain Cook landed and staked the claim for Britain to get another overseas territory. Today Botany Bay is about as un-botanical as a bay can get, as it hosts the airport and a massive expanse of petrochemical works, refineries and docks.

The reason I went all that way was to look in a museum dedicated to the French explorer who came here just after Cook. Jean-Francois la Compte de LaPerouse sailed from France to the Pacific via the Southern tip of Chile, then across to Easter Island and Russia, across to Alaska and down to present-day San Francisco, then across to Korea and up to Japan and Russia (again), then down through the Pacific to Australia via Hawaii. He did all this and arrived in Botany Bay six days after James Cook had claimed it for the British. Six days. However, being a French nobleman, he doffed his cap to Cook and turned around and sailed back into the Pacific. His ships were never seen again.

The museum charted the history of LaPerouse's staggering voyage, and what happened to him. Nobody knew, of course, for a long time. A rescue expidition sent by Louis XVI was destroyed by disease en-route and never made it. Louis himself apparently asked for news of LaPerouse as he was walking up the steps to the guillotine. But decades later a trader in the Solomon Islands saw a native with a silver sword handle and decided to ask where it had come from. It was from the wreck of two old French ships that had hit a reef on the island of Vanikoro and sunk. In the 1960's a French navy expidition finally pulled up the bell of the Astolabe, LaPerouse's ship, and the mystery was solved

Trip to the zoo

Feeding time for the lions

It was a very warm and sunny day today, so I made the most of it with a trip to Taronga Zoo. Check out the photos on my photobucket website. I saw all kinds of animals, from rats to elephants (not in the same enclosure). Also took in a couple of shows - a seal show which was pretty good, and a bird show which was great. Birds of prey, parrots, owls, all kinds of them. They came on in turn to the expert doing the talk, flying in from all directions to land on her arm. The wedge-tailed eagle flew off and was gone for a few minutes in the trees, investigating the nesting crows. It came back, eventually.

Oh, and Makybe Diva did win the Melbourne Cup...

The problem with flats

Time for a flutter?


Flat hunting is quite tricky in Sydney. For a start, the vast majority of the rooms are unfurnished. The rest of the flat/house has furniture, but the room you'll be looking at won't. I'm not sure why this is, but there must be a lot of wealthy removals men in Australia. So it quickly dawned on me that I'll have to buy a bed. But over here you can pick up a cheap double bed for about A$300, so it won't break the bank. The rest of the room might have to be a bit minimalist though.

I've looked round a couple of places, but not found anything decent yet. I still need to get into some other areas of the city, so I can widen my search a bit instead of concentrating on a couple of neighbourhoods. But I'll be doing that this week. I've also got to phone the cancer people and arrange my interview with them. Then there's the reading I need to do for that, as I've forgotten most of the figures from the Edinburgh cancer lot. Oh - and look out for a photo update soon - I have been taking them, but needed to enlarge my online host album.

Today is Melbourne Cup day in Australia - their equivalent of the Grand National. At 3:10pm the country stops, apparently, and everyone tunes in to the three-minute race. Everyone apart from me, that is. I've never really had any interest in racing - and seeing as I don't watch the Grand National, I'm not going to watch a shorter race without jumps. But they take it very seriously here - there are large screens set up in the city, and millions of dollars already laid down. You want my tip? Makybe Diva....

It's not what you know...

So many to choose from...


Had two very different nights out Thursday and Friday this week, summing up the differences between Sydney's flashy and not so flashy sides. On Thursday three of us from our dorm (three out of four - the German was out somewhere else) went out for a few drinks in Kings Cross. There are two others in the dorm, Rob and Matt, both typical 23yr old British backpackers - who refused to believe I was 28. We had plenty of drinks at a corner pub and ended up wandering around Kings Cross at 2am trying to stop Rob from chatting up the prostitutes.

The next night it was a birthday for one of the North Sydney lot, Hayley. I met her last week through Amy, she's a TV presenter for Channel 9 on a kids show called 'Totally Wild'. I got to the staggeringly swanky bar at Kings Street Wharf in the chic part of the harbour, only to discover a clipboard-toting matriarch with a guest list. After watching for a bit - and seeing they weren't letting anybody in who wasn't on the guestlist or didn't namedrop someone inside, I was starting to wonder how I was going to get in. Thankfully the day before I'd watched Hayley's TV programme (she was interviewing a schoolboy who collected reptiles) - and because I'd seen the end credits I knew her name. So I marched up to the clipboard and said 'I'm with Hayley Chapman', and they let me straight in. I was chuckling about that for ages - it turned out I was the only person in our group that Hayley didn't have to come down to the door and vouch for. Heh. Of course the swanky bar was full of pretentious idiots (although not in our group), but having outsmarted them, it didn't matter...

Slightly seeing someone famous

Can you see her?

Over the last couple of days I've been wandering around various parts of Sydney, trying to get some sort of idea of where might be a good area to live. I think Paddington is a favourite - I need to be near the city (so North Shore parts are out), and near transport, and ideally away from the Brit backpackers (so that rules out half of the Eastern suburbs, but mostly Bondi, Coogee and Kings Cross). The last point I'm not all that bothered about, but I can live with British people at home I guess.

The other day I went on the ferry to Balmain, a very swanky neighbourhood on a small spit in the harbour, so you could practically see the water from every direction. The houses were small, clapboard, and colourful - so it was almost like being on a Carribbean island. The day after I took the ferry to Manly and walked up and down the beach, and then through a 'bush trail' on the North Headland which has been left to nature. Saw plenty of insects, lizards, birds.

Today I had a mild brush with fame. Walking into the city to find a sandwich, there was a large crowd waiting outside a department store. Usually I shun such crowds, but here I don't exactly have a rigorous schedule, so I stood to wait for something to happen. About twenty minutes later, a flash car pulled up and Liz Hurley got out and walked into the store. I took a picture - you can see just how crap a papparazzi I would make. Unless you wanted to pay for a picture of the side of Liz Hurley's head obscured by a parking attendent in a top hat. If you do, you can call my agent...

Things that are different in Sydney

Skyscraper reflecting the QVB


1. Skyscrapers
Living in Edinburgh where every building is below about five storeys, coming here - to what feels really like a 'city' is certainly an eye-opener. Or rather an eye-widener, as I always seem to be looking upwards at the massive buildings looming overhead. If you want to look like a futuristic city there are three things you need - skyscrapers, neon, and a monorail. Sydney has ticks in all those boxes.

2. Asian Food
Of course we're nearer to Asia here, but Asian food is everywhere. Essentially Australia seems to have pilfered the best parts for their own cuisine (which they cunningly called 'fusion' so nobody would know what they borrowed). I can't think of a single day when I haven't eaten Asian food - Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai. It's all cheap, and it's all fantastic. Eating a great Thai meal for less that 3pounds is what I'm talking about.

3. Asian Women
Again, the proximity to Asia has something to do with this I'm sure. Everywhere you go in the city centre you are surrounded (not literally) by stunning Asian women. They all dress as if it's permanently Friday night, and they always seem to go round in pairs. I'm impressed - and it gives me something to look at when I'm eating Asian food, too...

4. Extreme weather
It's either way too hot or way too wet. I just don't get it. No mild boring days over here, oh no. On the weekend was one of the craziest storms I've ever seen - thunder and lightening every 30 seconds - bang/flash/bang/flash (or is it flash/bang/flash/bang?). They had a hailstorm in Northern NSW the other day - but the hailstones clumped together and formed cricketball-sized lumps that destroyed crops, trees, dented cars, and even - get this - punctured people's roofs! That would make you sit up and take notice...

5. Australian TV
Is rubbish. I was warned, yes, but it is rubbish. Guess what was on peak time the other day? Keeping up Appearances (that terrible sitcom with the Hyacinth Bucket character) and Inspector Morse. After the 8pm Simpsons/Neighbours/Home and Away slot - and yes they have them here too - it's time for the American acronym hour - CSI, NCIS, JAG, NYPD Blue - on every channel at once. Actually I quite like NYPD blue.

Eviction night - off to the Cross!

A bunk with a view...


You think hostels in Sydney, you think King's Cross. And indeed that's where I ended up on Friday afternoon. One weeks hostel accomodation - $144. I think that works out at 8pounds a night (no pound sign on the keyboard). I'm in a shared dorm with three other guys - one Brit, one German, and one New Zealander. Actually, bizarrely, I prefer this. I feel more like I'm in Sydney and less like I'm intruding. Next weekend the flatshare adverts come out and I'll be looking to move on - so a couple of dorm-bound weeks will do me no harm.

It also feels less like I'm in some kind of TV soap opera - although we went to a BBQ on Sunday that was very British in style - burned sausages and heavy rain. But it was good fun - the heavy rain turned into a crazy thunderstorm with crashes and bangs aplenty. The weather here is never dull, that's for sure...

Water water everywhere...

Bec, Amy and Amy's Mum at the birthday meal

It's still raining - I really can't believe it. Everyone I talk to says how unusual it is..."It never rains this much". That's because I wasn't here before! And it's not even going in the reservoirs where it's needed, apparently. Water is a big issue here.

Last night it was Amy's birthday so her brother Jason came round for dinner with his astoundingly pregnant wife, Fiona. She is about ready to burst - they had the 'hospital bag' in the car with them when they came, she's due any day. Amy's Mum cooked up some seafood and we had a fair amount of wine. Jason's a city trader, and looks every inch a city trader. Sometimes I feel like I've slipped into an episode of Dynasty - although no-one's been shot or gone into a coma yet.

Wildlife update - no spiders yet, but according to Faye a foot-long Goanna (lizard) was prowling about in the garage yesterday. She found it hiding under her car (a scarlet BMW of course) and left the garage door open for it to scurry out. Not sure if it did or not, but maybe it'll help with the spiders...

Nice weather for spiders

Ahhh! Spider!


It's been raining here steadily since Sunday night - almost two days. It made the TV news much in the same way a few centimetres of snow in London makes ITV news go into spasms. But they really do need the water here - one thing you notice is how dry everything is. Although not lately, as I got drenched yesterday as I was sorting out a bank account. It was so bad, I had to buy an umbrella. Of course some kind of spring broke and the umbrella jammed - I managed to fix it after I'd got home, but that is always the way things happen.

Spiders don't like the rain either. I've seen a couple of very small ones, but I was in bed on Monday morning and could hear a commotion on the stairs. There was a few muffled thumps and I could hear Amy (who hates spiders) yelping. When I got up I asked what had gone on - a Huntsman spider had crawled in out of the rain and was slowly wandering along the hall carpet. I made the mistake of asking how big it was - and was told it was 'palm-sized'. I was told then that they are totally harmless, but that fell on my newly deaf ears as I was quietly wondering what I'd seen poking out from under a pile of t-shirts in my room. After a thorough arms-length sweep of my room, I discovered the truth. It was a sock.

The high life (literally)

Rushcutter's Bay, with yacht club (white roof)

Saturday afternoon in Sydney, and time to pay a visit to Amy's Dad's apartment in Elizabeth Bay. One of the most exclusive areas of Sydney, it's right next to Kings Cross - one of the least exclusive. Travel writers would have a field day with the mixing of that kind of local flavours. Apparently Kylie Minogue herself looked at flats in Elizabeth Bay.

We were supposed to go round for a seafood lunch prepared by Amy's Dad, Earl, and his partner Jen. But after some champagne on the balcony of their fifth-floor apartment overlooking Rushcutter's Bay - a surprise was sprung. We were all going out to lunch.

So half an hour later we were in the swankiest restaurant in Chinatown, and I was staring at a very large, but very glum, lobster. Held up by Albert the head waiter - who knew Earl personally - it was about to be our afternoon's entertainment. But first, the duck. A whole duck, mind - fried and brought to our table to be carved. After three courses from the unfortunate (but very tasty) fowl, it was time for the lobster. I've never tried lobster before, and it was delicious - even if the guilty feelings about meeting it face to face before it's boiling bath persisted.

Earl signed the bill with a raffish grin, and after giving Amy a white gold bracelet he bought on a recent trip to New York, it was back to the flat for more drinks. We've been invited to his yacht club for lunch - this is all very different to how I imagined it would be - I'm certainly not in backpacker territory here. At this rate I'll have to invest in a blazer! (but I draw the line at cravats)...

All the way across

The view from Amy's house. Not bad, eh?

I got bitten by an ant yesterday, that's some welcome to Australia. Still, at least it wasn't a snake or a shark. Just a small black ant. Obviously I couldn't bring myself to squash it - even if it had attacked me 'When ants go bad' indeed. So I flicked it off, and carried on burning the nest with a magnifying glass. Joke! I was actually standing on a balcony admiring the view. I'm staying in Cremorne, which is very upmarket for a humble Lancashire boy like myself.

Cremorne is on the North side of the Harbour, and is home to a lot of city types and richer families. Sydney is made up of hundreds of bays and inlets, and where I am is no exception. From my window I can look out on to a yacht-strewn bay with waterside houses and trees. Whilst it's a view I could certainly get used to, I'd like to be a bit closer to the city - but finding accommodation can wait until next week.

The day I arrived it was 37C - the hottest October day on record. That kind of heat feels odd - you go outside and it feels too hot to be right, as if something's broken and it's overheating. I dunno, maybe that's what's happening. But thankfully because it was that hot it soon got thundery and a rainstorm (!) cooled everything off. I get here and it rains on my first day, and I'm thankful for it? What's going on there?

Last day at work

Won't be seeing this for a while...


Last half-day, really. In less than an hour I'll be leaving work, and more ready to head over to Australia. Things have progressed in the last few weeks - I'm almost all set to go - just need to sort out a few more things.

It'll be strange to leave Edinburgh - I've been here (on and off) for five years. It's certainly the place I've been most settled. But because I've been away and come back a few times, it's easier to leave this time, I think. At least I've got a week without work here to do anything I need to before I go. But probably I'll not get round to doing anything, that's the way it goes.

So that's it for the NHS, I'll see you on the other side. Only ten days to go!!